How do you build hype around your community launch? Check out these tips to get people engaged with your new online community.
So you’re launching a new online community? Congrats! That’s a big deal. A lot of work went into it and your organization probably has high expectations. With careful planning and preparation, you’ll have a great launch.
A big part of a successful launch — and creating a sustainable community — is demonstrating community member value and helping members get involved quickly.
As you build excitement around your community launch, take time to educate people about why your organization invested in community, how it benefits everyone, and what good member behavior looks like.
Want to dig deeper? Check out our Community Manager Toolkit!
So how do you raise awareness about the launch of your new online community? Here are four ideas:
You’re obviously excited about launch day, but are your customers or members? They will be once you tell them! Before your community launches, educate your future community members about what an online community means for them and make sure they look forward to using this brand new, valuable resource.
So how do you educate future community members? Look at the channels currently available and turn to the most influential people in your organization. Here are a few ideas:
Create an elevator pitch. Keep it short and to the point! Attention spans are very short – even more so with COVID-19.
Consider a video! Your community launch is worth making a splash about. Invest some resources into making a video that will communicate the highlights of the new launch. We loved the video that Blue Prism created for their online community launch.
Highlight the key benefits. What problem does your community solve for your customer?
Personal communication makes a difference.
Use a mixture of promotional tactics. The trick is to find a combination of tactics to reach the most people. Not everyone is going to read your blog or open your newsletter, so make sure you reach every segment. In addition to the tactics above, you could try:
Always be promoting. People need to be told about new programs repeatedly for the information to take hold. You’ll need to keep on promoting the community.
Although it’s tempting to open the gates for everyone at the same time, consider building your community slowly at first.
Before a big launch that involves everyone, start with a soft launch. Choose a few trusted people who understand what community is and are dedicated to its growth. When you start with a few dedicated people, they establish community norms and grow conversation.
By establishing the community with a few most valuable players (MVPs) before giving general admission, new people who don’t know anything about the community can dive into the conversation right away. Rather than figuring out how they’re supposed to act, or feeling nervous to start the first discussion, your hand-selected MVPs have already laid the groundwork. These community members may also become your future community super users.
In the soft launch, consider including several executives or leaders from your organization. Imagine the message your new community members will receive when they log in and see your president or CEO has already posted a blog post or contributed to an “Introduce Yourself” thread. It shows everyone involved that your organization is invested in community and views it as an important resource for them.
Georgina (Cannie) Donahue, Director of Community at Pragmatic Institute, said, “Online community growth is a long game – due to all the psychological and dynamic factors that play into it. I think a community should and could consider itself to be launching for up to a year.” And she’s a real expert on community launches – she and her team launched Pragmatic Institute’s virtual community of practice right during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Learn more from Georgina in her Super Forum breakout session, “The Tortoise AND The Hare: Launch Your Community with a Bang, Without Sacrificing Staying Power.”
When it comes to educating your customers or members about your community, your annual conference is a great opportunity – yes, even if it’s a virtual event!
Centering the launch around the conference can be overwhelming and it might get lost. Instead, try kicking off the community four to six weeks before your event and use the conference to increase awareness and as an opportunity to educate.
To have the biggest impact, you need to be creative and understand your organization’s culture — what’s going to make the biggest impact with your specific group? There isn’t a one-tactic-fits-all solution, but here are a couple ways to incorporate your community launch into your virtual or in-person conference:
Even if your community can’t be the centerpiece of your conference, it should still be visible. Try these tactics:
An online community launch doesn’t end with the initial hype. You want to continue to promote with each group so that they continue to engage in your online community. To encourage community adoption, leverage automation rules (a Higher Logic Community feature that allows you to send personalized nudges at scale) to create a formal community onboarding process, ensure FAQs are consistently updated, add some seed questions, and provide channels for members to seek support.
Gwen Basaria and Jennifer Richards at the American Association of Airport Executives and Shanna Montoya, Marketing and Community Manager at the Colorado Bar Association, are community launch pros. They shared these ideas for encouraging adoption among staff and users post-launch:
For Staff:
For Users
Launching your new online community successfully requires preparation and planning – and some thoughtful tactics like phased launching with a small group.
But keep in mind it’s not all about the communication tactics – you’ll want to assign ownership, prepare community content, and more. Get more tips and a launch checklist in our Guide, How to Launch a New Online Community.
When your community is finally launched and ready for action, you’ll be ready to begin your engagement journey, creating opportunities for connection at every stage of the user journey.